Green beer... and other (mis)adventures
Then, there were leprechauns (!) on the street corners waving to passing cars - yes, yes, to be specific, people dressed up in leprechaun costumes - I couldn't help it, I waved back while laughing out loud in the car.
We decided to hit the local Irish Pub where a huge tent had been erected to contain the masses of celebrants, just because Gene was extra keen to drink green beer. Don't ask me why, I really don't quite know either.
So here's the Green Beer.
And that's Gene looking distinctly unamused: heheheheh. The beer was awful, think they just dumped a vat of some nuclear-green thing into very flat beer, and served it at 2.75 a pop... eh, you need to add tips for the bartender too leh, so it was expensive beer at about 3.75 a pop - that's about five or six bucks Sing. Anyway, it was five or six bucks Sing down the drain cos G was totally dying to get out of there - he wore his nice Zegna shirt and Polo corduroys and the chappies at the pub were wearing their hunting vests... We were literally flies in potato soup, wait, make that croutons, since we are really yellow now with our super-faded tans.... and one of the flies was super overdressed. Hurhurhur. Hence the super "get-me-outta-here-now!" look. I chortled at him the entire night.
But to make up for it, there was a great house party that night, we were invited by an Irish cardiologist that I met a week earlier, she's got such a British-isles type name.. Aisling. Anyway, she and four other Irish chaps and ladies here decided to throw a good old fashioned st pat's party - read a party with LOTS of booze, notably Guinness.
It felt like something right out of our "functions" back in those days of our youth - c'mon everyone, you remember them right? the house parties usually thrown by richie rich kids? And they'd hire like sound systems and all?
This had all the elements - sound system with this pounding bass, strobe lights AND a disco ball. We had a blast, not least because it was so international. I mean, we don't usually realize this, but Rochy IS quite a melting pot of different nationalities, and last night felt like quite the United Nations: Irish (or course), Americans (well, we are here in MN after all), Indian, Italian, Czech, Canadians, Greek, Lebanese... you get the idea... and everyone bopping to Irish jig music and Europop/dance/techno. Gives the idea of world harmony quite a filip don't you think?
Then today, we went up to the cities to positively gorge on dimsum... *burp* let's just say I got so full that I felt that if I had eaten another bitem everything would have spewed up. THAT bad.
Completely bloated and with doggy bag in tow (told you we overextended ourselves with the ordering), we headed off to see the car show in Minneapolis - where Gene fell in love all over again with the Lotus Elise, eyeballed the Porsche Targa and the Cayman S.
THEN we caught the movie 300. It's a must watch, and its absolutely eye candy galore for us women. Finally, I say! Finally we get to oooogle at the men on the screen.
Gene sniffs that it makes the movie like Chippendales. Humpf, no-one says anything disparaging abt movies which put up gorgeous woman bodies up on screen for the MEN to oogle now, do they?
Heh, that said, I liked the movie, cause the film making was aboslutely wonderful - new techniques, the lighting is wonderful, great new angles etc (okay, the cuties did have something to do with it too especially... *Swoooon*... Tom Wisdom).
But (spoilers ahead) good grief, I don't think the Immortals had ahem metal face masks that made them look like fans of the Joker. Drugs, yes, face masks like that? No. And I understand the image of Xerxes came straight out of a graphic novel by Frank Miller (of Sin City etc etc fame), but whoa, he just looked like Kumar (boom-boom-room Kumar) to me.
That said, the battle of Thermopylae has always been this wonderful premise, and I'm glad someone did a cool job of it. Bits I didn't like? All that going on about democracy etc etc etc, and how they were fighting for a future for freedom.
Erhm, Sparta used slaves. Hello. That's why they had to maintain the warrior breed of Spartans so that the slaves - who did ahem everything and eventually controlled the economy of the city state - wouldn't revolt. Martial law anyone? Geez. But true, they did inspire the rest of the city states to get off their butts,a nd therefore Athenian style or shall we say inspired democracy managed to survive... yada yada and then the rest is, as they say, history.
But all that said and done, doncha think Sparta is horribly intriguing? I remember being fascinated, almost gruesomely so, during my A levels history class by how the Spartans abandoned their weak, deformed babies, or threw them off a cliff. So committed were they to this idea of martial strength and law. But eugh, I also remember almost tearing up my book when I had to remember details like the many Athenian leaders and the Persian-Hellenic battles. Gak.
Alright alright, have rambled on enough. Go watch the show :)
